The Voice Underneath Chapter 1
It was dark when Evan walked into the dispatch center, the kind of thick, heavy dark that seemed to cling to your clothes. He was used to it (night shift did that to a man) but tonight the fluorescent lights overhead looked sickly, like they were trying their best and still somehow failing. The shadows in the corners felt longer, reaching a little farther than they had any right to.
Then again, everything had felt darker since Chelsea left. The whole world seemed turned down a notch, like someone had adjusted the brightness on reality and forgotten to turn in back up.
He was tired. The kind that sank into a man’s joints and made him feel twice his age. Ever since the divorce, sleep had become a guest that stopped by for minutes instead of hours. He missed Chelsea - of course he did - but what he really missed was the way her presence had kept the nightmares at bay. Without her there, the woman’s voice (the one from that call” felt closer somehow, like a memory leaning over his shoulder. Some nights, as he drifted off, he could swear he heard her again: that last breath, that ragged plea.
It had been months, but the memory hadn’t loosened its grip.
He checked his phone. Nothing.
That empty lock screen punched harder than it should’ve. He supposed he earned it; he hadn’t exactly been reaching out. He used to swing by his buddies’ houses on Sundays, yell at the TV with a beet in hand, talk trash about bad passes and even worse coaching. Now he stayed home, let calls go to voicemail, pretended he was too tired to go out. People stop trying after a while. That was on him.
His sister Abigail still called, bless her, but even she had that strained note in her voice lately. The sound of someone carrying a weight that wasn’t theirs. He hated putting it there.
He checked the screen again, just in case a message had slipped in during the three seconds he wasn’t looking. Still nothing.
He sighed and dropped into his chair, feeling it creak under him. He switched on the console. The monitor flickered awake, throwing pale blue lights across the room like reluctant ghosts.
He didn’t love the job (never had) but there were parts he enjoined. Parts he was good at. Helping people, being the calm in someone’s worst moment. He could do that. But the waiting… the waiting always dug at him. Hours of nothing, punctuated by thirty seconds of panic that carried the weight of life and death.
Tonight, though, the waiting didn’t feel boring. It felt… different. Like he didn’t want the shift to end. Like walking back outside into the world would be harder than it had any right to be.
But he ignored it. It was probably just fatigue. Everything was fatigue these days.
Call incoming.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“My baby, it’s my baby!”
“Yes ma’am, I understand. Is the child conscious? Is she breathing at all?”
“She’s not breathing,” sobbed the woman. There was a slight rustle on the line, a warped, low sound like a radio tuning. Probably interference. It wouldn’t be the first time. Evan could hear her beginning to grow hysterical.
“Where are you calling from?”
She gave the address.
“I’m sending an RA to your location now. Help is on the way.”
The console glowed. Call completed.
Evan sat back into his chair until his spine popped like bubble wrap. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, feeling the grip of too many sleepless days clinging to his scalp.
“Hey man! How are you?”
Evan turned around. It was Patrick, the new kid. The one who thought this job was temporary, just something he’d do until his real life started.
“I’m doing alright, Patrick. Tired,” Evan said. “How about you?”
Patrick blew out a breath, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m tired too, man. I keep trying to get management to move me to day shift but they just won’t. I told them my girlfriend is literally gonna dump me if they keep me working the nights, and they just don’t care.” He laughed nervously, then seemed to remember, all at one, about Evan’s recent divorce. “Uh… sorry. Didn’t mean to.”
Evan waved him off. He didn’t mind. He was actually grateful to have a normal conversation. It felt like a lifeline. Someone talking to him without screaming or sobbing or begging. Someone who wasn’t talking to him because they needed him to save them.
“It’s fine, Patrick. Keep asking. They’ll get annoyed eventually.”
“Thanks Evan. I-oh. Hey, you’re getting a call.”
Evan turned back to the console. The screen pulsed with the incoming alert, its glow just a shade too bright in the dim room. His eyes were probably just getting worse.
Either way: someone needed him.
“911, what is your emergency?”
Silence.
Not the clean kind, either. Not the simple absence of sound. This was the thick, uncomfortable kind of silence that felt occupied, like a room where someone was holding their breath.
“Are you able to speak freely?”
Nothing.
Well, almost nothing. Underneath the quiet was a sound so faint he almost missed it: a low, wavering hum, the kind old radios made when they were trying to find a station that didn’t exist anymore. He pinched the bridge of his nose. The headsets had been acting up all night. More interference. More ghosts in the wiring.
Assuming the person on the line was unable to speak freely, he pulled up the caller info, expecting at least a location.
Nothing.
No number. No history.
No coordinated.
The hum was still there, steady as a heartbeat.
“Hello?” He tried again.
A voice came through. Or something that wore the shape of a voice.
Thin. Distorted.
Like someone speaking from the wrong end of a long, dark tunnel.
“Operator?”
Evan felt a prickle run up the back of his neck. “What is your emergency?”
A small pause, then: “She wasn’t breathing. She’s breathing now.”
And with a soft click, the line went dead.
The hum stopped with it.
—————————
The apartment was dark when Evan stumbled in, keys rattling against the lock like they were drunk too. He didn’t bother turning on the lights. He knew the place well enough to navigate blind: two steps to the right, hand on counter, whiskey bottle where he’d left it the day before.
He twisted the cap off with more force that necessary and took a long swallow, the kind that burned all the way down. He welcomed the burn. It made him feel something besides exhausted.
He dropped into his usual spot on the sagging sofa, bottle hanging between his knees. The apartment smelled faintly of old takeout and the Leon cleaner he never rinsed properly. Chelsea would’ve hated that. She would’ve marched in with rubber gloves and an expression that meant I love you but dear God fix this.
He took another drink.
And another.
Eventually the taste of whiskey blurred into the ever-present sound of the clock.
The silence… it had a weight tonight. Like the silence from the call. Like the silence from months ago.
And that’s when the memories began crawling up through him: slow at first, then suffocating.
The woman’s voice.
The one from the call he couldn’t forget.
The one that had followed him into sleep every night since.
At first, it came like a memory replaying at the back of his skull.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He’d been drinking too fast. This happened sometimes. The voice resurfaced when he hit the right level of tired and drunk, as if guilt had a volume knob that alcohol always turned up.
He leaned forwards, elbows on his knees, palms over his face,
But then the voice changed.
Shifted.
Softened.
This wasn’t how she sounded that night. This wasn’t panic. This was…calm.
“Evan.”
He froze.
His breath caught halfway into his lungs, and he held it there like prey hiding from a predator.
He waited.
Silence. Just the old clock ticking.
He let out a shaky breath and wiped his face. “Jesus. Get a grip,” he muttered, taking another drink.
The whiskey tasted wrong on his tongue.
He leaned back into the sofa, eyes half-closed, trying to let the alcohol pull him deeper, into numbness.
But then the voice came again, closer this time, unmistakable, a whisper brushing the shell of his ear even though he was alone in the apartment.
“You heard me tonight.”
Evan shot up so fast he nearly dropped the bottle. He swung his head around, scanning the apartment, heart pounding like a fist against his ribs.
Nothing.
Just the dark, empty air. the faint hum of the fridge. The old clock, ticking.
He swallowed hard, pulse still racing.
“That’s not near,” he whispered. “You’re drunk. It’s the same damn memory. Same dream. It’s over.”
But he’d never heard her say that.
Not on the call. Not in any nightmare.
His hand shook as he set the bottle on the coffee table. The glass clinked loudly, too loudly.
His phone, lying on the sofa beside him, buzzed once.
He started at it. It didn’t buzz again.
Didn’t light up. Didn’t show a notification.
Evan didn’t pick it up.
He just stared, afraid that if he touched it, he’d hear that voice through the glass again.
In the silence, the refrigerator hum seemed louder now.
Almost rhythmic.
Almost breathing.
He reached out towards it. Slowly. Scared. He wasn’t sure why.
Chelsea.